Talk:Campaigns Wikia
It begins here No idea where to comment, so I guess this will have to do for now. We should probably have some categorisation throughout the campaigns. I suppose a "Campaigns by country; State; Province; Region; District; etc" broken down into some sort of Party system would be good. That way, if I want to know what other, say, Green Party candidates are running for the U.S. House of Representatives from Montana, I could easily find them. Or if I wanted to, say, find all the candidates running for MP from Bromsgrove, they would all be in one location. Is there something like this already in mind? --Lord Voldemort (Dark Mark) 20:20, 5 July 2006 (UTC) That sounds like a good idea. Categories are probably the easiest tool to use for this, but of course categories presuppose the existence of articles... What I have been thinking about is that we will probably have two distinct sorts of things here: first a set of general philosophical and pratical discussions about things like: how to get active in a campaign and convince them that this stuff matters... this kind of discussion applies to everyone. Second, an index to campaigns, including stuff about every candidate we can find, something like NPOV articles about them plus probably NPOV-ish pages which sum up the arguments PRO and CON for each candidate.--Jimbo Wales 20:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC) Wiki-fying Political Arguments in a Logical Way I have a vision which probably doesn't mesh completely with Jimbo's, but here it is. As you are probably all aware, Wikipedia is great, but it's not so great on subjects that are controversial or political. Wikipedia articles on these subjects are prone to "edit wars", or whatever you want to call it. What Jimbo is suggesting is that we have a wiki ESPECIALLY FOCUSED on the very sorts of subjects on which wikis work THE WORST - controversial or political issues. What I think we really need is something just a bit beyond a wiki, the next step in web information applications. Here's where I'll be waving my arms and making hard to understand statements, so bear with me. Wiki provides a way to quickly record, categorize, and map FACTS. We need a way to record, categorize and map ARGUMENTS. There are a finite set of TYPES of arguments. These have been recorded in textbooks, and lawyers study them. We need an application that allows us, in a wiki-like fashion, to record arguments. There would be forms for a given sort of argument ("Argument by Example", etc.) The correctness of an argument could rest on other arguments, and long chains thus be could be made. Of course, there would be undecidable things, creating "scisms" in the database, or "schools of thought", but at least we could map out where they are. How many times have you seen the same arguments made over and over on blogs or whatever? Wouldn't you like a way to see all of the arguments at that have been made gathered together all in one place, along with the counterarguments to them? If we had such a system, eventually, shorthands for arguments would occur, and when a polician or blogger makes an argument, you could say "oh, he's making THIS argument", and link to the argument-wiki. (It probably needs a new name. "Logos"?) Think of how much human energy would be saved from having rational people quickly be able to find what is right or wrong with their arguments? What I'm asking for would involve much coding, of course, and so while what I'm asking for does not yet exists, we could TRY to make do with this mere wiki. Still, does anyone see what I mean? ----- I strongly approve of this course of action. I think each issue should be covered by as many perspectives as possible, starting with the major political parties' stance and going right down to perspectives that synthesize multiple perspectives/arguments. --Ferguson 17:27, 6 July 2006 (UTC) :I second. I wouldn't mind seeing a spanning tree of arguments about an issue. Arguments and points from all points of an issue with responses as a child node. CreationWiki has something like this at their Index to Creationist Claims --Jeolmeun 18:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC) : I agree with this although the formality of the suggested approach is non-ideal to maximize participation. The Digg model works well here: for each issue, users submit arguments, strategies, ideas, etc. while others vote for- and against the argument on the basis of quality of argument, writing, evidence presented, etc. (and not upon 'agreement'). Management of submission of refinements or minor alternatives to particular POVs will be an issue. Jdiggans 01:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC) A Different way to organize... In addition to organizing Campaigns Wikia by topics (International Affairs, Education, Civil Rights) etc., with attendant sub-topics, we may want to consider a temporal organization approach as well. By that I mean setting up chronological templates like 2010, 2015, 2020 etc., where Wikia members can contribute their thoughts on the issues that are likely to be most pressing for the country BY THAT time-frame. The idea behind this is simple. Most of the imperatives that drive political discussions by politicians and the media, are driven by short-term political time-tables, like the upcoming mid-term elections, or the next Presidential elections. They're then debated through the filters of the right and the left (or the left and the right, depending on your perspective). Even when we discuss major issues like immigration, education, etc., we're really talking about them in 2-4 year time frames. And while politicians and the media talk about issues like Social Security in the longer term, due to the nature of the issue, they're talked about in the context of the issue itself, BUT NOT in conjunction with other issues like immigration, education, trade relations with China/India, etc., that are likely going to influence Social Security in the long term. When you think about it, we have no political or media institution that really has a stake in nurturing discussion and debates on truly long-term issues, especially ones that are not influenced by near-term politics. At least in the area of economics and the judiciary, we've created institutions like the Federal Reserve and the Supreme Court that truly deliberate on issues and policies for the truly long-term, independent of near-term political agendas. We need to have a similar discussion template for discussing today's issues in the context of tomorrow. Truly representative representatives Excellant idea, I and a friend of mine have been discussing for some time, at great length whether the internet could help augment the lack of true representation provided by our government officials. Along with the organizational ideas, we had discussed organizing content according to representative district so it would be easy for someone to follow local/state/national politics on a topic/representative organization relative to their locale. Organization :Organizing this is going to be interesting. How will people want to find candidates? Obviously there will be the need to drill down by location. Additionally, people might want to drill-down by issue, and they might want to do so within a location (e.g., California-based candidates relating to firearms regulation issues), which will be tricky, but necessary (after all, most people in a particular country may not care what people in other countries are doing on that issue, and looking at death-penalty positions across the globe will be too much noise to filter through). :Chronological organization will also be tough, with regards to people wanting to drill down through historical campaigns on various issues. But I'm not sure how much this wants to become a historical resource--I doubt people will be in favor of retroactively adding campaigns from the past; part of the interest in this project will be in capturing the campaign coverage at the time of the campaign. :Additionally, we'll want some way to organize citations. Perhaps we can have a comprehensive list of citations relating to every candidate on their wiki. E.g., anything anyone was quoted as saying in the NY Times should be filed somewhere. How much effort will we try to put in this central wiki to effect policy on the campaign wikis. Should they all follow similar organizational principles, or are they essentially free-for-alls? :Just throwing out some topics/concerns. Jun-Dai 22:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC) new and confused Wow, is the right time for this site. I probably don't fit your profile, I'm much older and a grammar grump but I can't believe the way we, the people, are losing control of our government. The media isn't biased, it's doing just what the people want. Making it short, sweet and untrue. The truth takes so looong!! I don't even know how to blog and this is the first time I've written (and I hope this is a blog) but we all need to start somewhere. What would be a good beginning topic? Let's tak...ummm....better slogans? Not "cut and run", let's do "learn and live"!! Let's find a way to give people the news in a short amount of time. But let's make sure it's the truth. Let's not give both sides, let's just talk true. Could this work? Organizing Wiki site by both topics and political/geographic areas As someone who has done grassroots organizing in California (eg: California for Democacy, San Francisco for Democracy) I recommend that in addition to organizing by topics, pages which are organized first by State and then by Congressional District be created as well. There's an enormous workload of keeping track of who is running in what congressional districts, which districts might be singled out for special attention by opposing parties (eg: in California grassroots groups have an organized campaign "to take back red California" on a district-by-disctrict by district basis) and what the big issues are for that distict. Although I assume this new Wiki site can't allow itself to become a partisan tool, I envision individual pages for each Congressional district which would accomplish two purposes: inform everybody about the basics (who's the incumbent, who are the challengers, what are the recent voter trends). All that stuff would be NPOV. Then, if Wikipedia will allow this as a matter of policy, individual editors could add postings about the pros and cons of each candidate. Although these posting would not be NPOV, they would have to abide by other Wikipedia rules such as assume good faith, no personal attacks, provide verification for any claimed facts, etc. --Tom Brown 23:46, 5 July 2006 (UTC) Independent subwikis :If we're going to have subwikis for individual candidates, would it make sense to also have subwikis for: :# Political parties :# Referendum issues (e.g., prop 187) :# Nations and/or provinces? languages? (how do we intend to deal with languages, btw?) :Is it really necessary/relevant to have a separate wiki for each candidate? what purpose does that serve? :Just throwing more questions into the air. :Jun-Dai 00:08, 6 July 2006 (UTC) ::I agree with you. As I suggest above, it would be more meaningful to have subwikis by states and congressional districts (for the US). Just having stand alone candidate pages doesn't make sense IMHO. What would really be nice is to have a home-page map of the US (or maybe the world?) which would allow you to click on your own area. --Tom Brown 00:28, 6 July 2006 (UTC) PS: Here's an example of a clickable US map done by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. DCCC Confusion Let's look at the gay marriage topic here in our new wonderland. There are seven opinions, all of which have very little to do with each other, as though the posters simply wanted to get off their chests some sort of devastating defeat to whichever side they disagree with. If it continues down that line, it will become chaotic, unintelligible, and increasingly more idiotic. These people's opinions are, for the most part, valid, but there absolutely must be a structure to articles like that. My problem is this: What exactly is the difference between campaigns.wiki, and wikipedia? If I go to wikipedia, I can read a full, incredibly done article on Same-Sex marriage with links and great information abound. It already has the debate issues all lined up. Should we just..say, copy and paste something like that over to this wiki, and contextualize it in terms of party platforms and politicians? Should we then create an area for people to begin an informed debate, one that can be easily researched and factual thanks to the ready information available to them? If the point of this website is to raise the bar, we need to set the bar somewhere. At the moment, throwing out opinions is no better than any other blog. If I'm missing the point of this website, then what is the gay marriage topic supposed to be filled with, if not information regarding the different viewpoints, which can then be debated? Slacksimus 07:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Worldwide discussion I'd like to put a 'Tools' section in here, and widen the discussion to a worldwide one. Here in the UK, we have a great organisation called MySociety http://www.mysociety.org/ that makes some fantastic open democracy tools that maybe others can gain inspiration from. Things like http://www.pledgebank.com/ for gathering support; WriteToThem http://www.writetothem.com/ for writing to your MP, and a special Lords edition for writing to Peers; HearFromYourMP http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ which encourages MPs to run mailing lists for their constituents. Then there's TheyWorkForYou http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ which allows you to find out what your MP has been saying in Parliament. I think there's huge value in sharing experiences from country to country. Of course, not all experiences will map accross - you couldn't do WriteToThem in Ireland, for example, because it works off postal codes and the Irish don't all use postal codes. But the ideas are worth sharing nonetheless. :I think that's a great idea. I'll copy these links to tools to start the page. Please expand it! Angela (talk) 08:05, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Pete Ashdown -- who is running against US Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah -- has used a wiki as part of his campaign for awhile already to involve normal folk in his campaign. He even got attention from the BBC for his efforts with Wikipolitics. Check out the Pete Ashdown Campaign Wiki.--Anhhung18901 18:14, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Can we go International with this? This Wiki reached Slashdot this morning (GMT) and a discussion is currently ongoing here. I posted a comment on the discussion regarding what I thought of the idea and if it could be widened to an International audience. Here's the content of the post: I think this is a good idea. It looks to have the potential to raise peoples awareness of the practise of politics and a central area where peoples opinions on political issues and agendas can be seen in near real time. Much different than the "write a letter to your congressman" or (in Ireland), "go meet with your local councillor", where you have to account for the time it takes for your opinion/issues to filter up and down the food chain. There is also the "mob mentality", whereby if enough people have the same views on a certain issue, then it has the potential to sway political thought. How about developing this further, into a Wiki for other nations and political regimes similar to (or dissimilar to) Republican Democracy. Note: Republican here means the method of democracy practised, not the party. I agree about going world-wide, but also about transcending the idea of voting, of division of the world's decision-making by national boundaries, and even of geographical boundaries? Not that we can do all that, but if you're going to redefine politics, should you go directly into discussing taxes? why not start by taking a step back into the ethics etc? - Skoria at gmail. :Short answer: Yup. I think the phrase on Wikipedia is be bold. Chadlupkes 20:16, 6 July 2006 (UTC) ::I agree with Chadlupkes, and would go further with an "of course!" Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Rhy Thornton's bid for President in 2012. I'm running for president in 2012. I'm running on the Pirate ticket. My campaign platforms are as follows: First and foremost, and above all other issues, we must make absolutely sure that there is no tom-foolery or corruption involved in our election system. This includes election reform, campaign finance reform, and an improved media for all populist candidates that is not part of the commercial media establishment. The days of Fox and Diebold rigging our elections must end now. Government transparency. Too much is done by a government "for and by the people", that is not even known about by the people. This is an essential breakdown in the original system designed by our founding fathers. Adhering strictly to the constitution. Many laws and rulings have watered down key parts of the constitution, in particular Freedom of Speech. We must restore our constitution as the most powerful piece of our entire government, and ensure that it's inherent values are not watered down. Balancing the budget. Putting America back in the black, and ensuring that our financial situation is stable, progressively strong in the world economy, and sustainable. Improving American Infrastructure. Our highways, both digital and automotive need improvements, technological upgrades, and better management. Our schools need better curriculum. Our towns, states, and country need modernization for the new global village we live in. Improving our foreign image. In the years since John F. Kennedy, our image abroad has plummeted, and sadly in many cases, rightfully so. We need to ensure that our populous is ultimately in charge of our foreign policy, through better government representation. Removing corruption in all levels of the government. Too much dirty money is running our broken system. Many politicians now serving should be held accountable, both by their electorates, and by the United States legal system. Any poltician not acting directly in the interest of his electorate, but for lobbyists or financial gain, must be exposed, expelled, and perhaps even imprisoned. Duke Cunningham was not alone. Improving our patent and copyright systems. Information is inherently valuable to all of society and it's peoples and should not be held privately by corporations that can over-charge for drugs and other necessary items and designs. These are my campaign platforms. Every decision I make while leading the American people, either military, financial, or otherwise, will be transparent and reported thoroughly in every media channel available to me. My press secretary will look you in the eye, answer every question fully, and tell you as much of the truth as possible. This is what the American people deserve, and it's what our country needs. International? Well well, what we can see in this project? If we are aiming to create a truly international project, I think we need * Index by country * A page for every country * Campaigns information on each of the country page (Eg. Scheduled elections) * Candidates * Write about single one candidate * Post somewhere in a blog or news portal, so the oponents would access, and oponents themselves will start creating the pages for you. You will be able to watch the information about whem. Well, at least this is what I imagine what we could do from this webspace. Even though I am not very interested in politics (I am more contributing to a totally different project, related with the physical restrictions of people, rather than political), but I think this kind of information would be useful for the voters, so they could refer before voting. I was thinking about a similar idea, that it would be good to have a place where people could find more information about the candidates not from the mass media, but from the public itself, even anonymuously. Inyuki 14:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC) De-Criminalization of Marijuana Medical Marijuana/Decriminalization I don't know how to create a topic, but this is an issue that is very important to many people. I feel that if the American public knew all the facts regarding marijuana and how it was made illegal in the first place, there would be an outcry for change. The FDA recently released a report on cannabis saying it has no medical benefits, but that report directly contradicts much scientific research. What motive does the FDA have for this? In California, Medical Marijuana patients, who are in full compliance with state law (Prop 215), are being arrested by federal agents. Is this the best way to use our law enforcement resources? In a country where both tobacco and alcohol are legal, how can we justify keeping Marijuana illegal? -JM, 7/6/06, 8:33 Pacific Vote NOTA - None Of The Above One of the most contentious issues in the history of humankind is politics. I don't care for it in my life, in the world and especially in Government. Yet, it is unavoidable, unstoppable, uncontrollable and unsavory - it's self-serving, rife with illusion, confusion and dissolution - it breeds intelligent deceit and manipulative relationships - it too often leads to corruption and death. One of the simplest definitions of politics is - human interaction. That's why it's unavoidable and unstoppable. This doesn't mean all human interactions are political, but there are not many relationships that don't involve any politics. The only relationship I have that has no political agenda is with God. The strange thing about politics is the dictionary definitions. If you look up "politics" with the 's', you get definitions like, "The art or science of government or governing" or "The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party" or "Intrigue or maneuvering within a political unit or group in order to gain control or power". Then look up "politic" without the 's', you get definitions like, "Using or marked by prudence, expedience, and shrewdness; artful" or "Crafty; cunning". It says nothing about governing or Government. Then look up "Democracy", you'll get definitions like, "Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives" or "The common people, considered as the primary source of political power" or "The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community". I don't see any direct connection between politics and governing in a Democracy. It's only the politicians (and their benefactors) that want you to think Government and politics are the same thing, but they aren't. In a democracy, the people (citizens) are considered to be the primary source of political power. The principles of 'social equality' and 'respect for the individual within a community' are what drives a true democracy - not politics. If you let the politicians run Government it usually leads to corruption and scandal. That's because politicians and political parties are self serving - they have no interest in serving society, unless there's profit in it for them. Here's a history lesson. In 1931 Canada (and other countries) gained it's independence from British Parliamentary rule with the "Statute of Westminster". The people of Canada were now able to form their own Government within an independent country. Canada's parliament at the time was descended from the British Parliament and in 1931, they usurped power over the Government in Canada without telling the citizens. Very few common citizens had any knowledge of the affair and there was little or no recognition of Canada's new independence. Too many people have forgotten - when a person works for the Government, either as an elected official, an office worker, employee or laborer, they are all PUBLIC SERVANTS. That's right - President George Bush is a public servant, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a public servant, your mayor is a public servant, the people who work in the motor license office are public servants, the municipal garbage collectors are public servants. They all work for the 'citizens of the land' or "the common people, considered as the primary source of political power". People in North America only know one way to elect Government officials. We vote for political parties. Whoever gets the most votes wins. In U.S.A., there are dozens of parties running for elections, but it's always considered a two party race. In Canada, there are dozens of parties running for elections, but only two parties dominate the votes. In recent elections, less that 50% of the people even bothered to vote, in both Canada and U.S.A. With a 'first past the post' system of voting (like in British Columbia), a party can win with less than 15% of the population voting for them. This means 85% of the population didn't vote for them and have no say in how the region is governed. Any democratically elected official should have most of the population supporting them. This system sucks - BIG TIME! So, what's the answer? We need to have elections. We need Government officials. We don't need scandals in Government. We don't need politics in Government. What can the people do? Vote "NONE OF THE ABOVE" Have you ever heard about NOTA? It stands for "None Of The Above". This is how we can eliminate politics from Government. When we go to the polling stations to vote, there should be an option at the bottom of the ballot that reads, "None Of The Above". People check this option if they don't like any of the candidates or parties on the ballot. If the majority of people vote for 'None Of The Above', then we randomly select a qualified citizen to fill the position(s). This may sound strange at first until you realize - this is how we select our juries, and they make life and death decisions all the time. Any voting citizen is qualified to be Prime Minister, President, Governor, Premiere or Mayor. There are no requirements like legal degrees, or political science training, or even college education to be elected. The randomly selected people will have professional advisers all around them to help them make decisions. That's all there is to the job, making decisions. The decisions should benefit all people in a society, not the parties or politicians. The best thing you can do at this point is to send letters to the Elections Officials in your area. Tell them you want to have the option to vote "None Of The Above" on all ballots. That's it. With enough pressure we can get the NOTA option on ballots and regain control in Government. This text is from my Blog about politics @ http://robdubois.blogspot.com I have another BLOG that talks about the NOTA option in greater detail @ http://mytruthquest.blogspot.com. QUESTION: Who decides if a person is "qualified" or not? Will the chosen person even WANT to do the job assigned to them? Who chooses the "professional advisers" (advisors)...? Do you see these holes in your argument? JM, 7/6/06, 9:28 Pacific Minimum Wage Anyone else tired of reliving the same-old-same-old every few years? How 'bout if we decide on what's fair and then index that with the cost-of-living, so that we can "set-it-and-forget-it"! Bush in Germany! How he paralysed Frankfurt area in Feb. 23.rd 2005. Is it needed to spend millions of euros on security for just one man? Why the germans have to pay for that visit? I say that he's welcome, but he sould pay his bills! The Facts: George W. Bush met Germany several times and every time he demands a very high level of security including the cut of personal freedom. In February 2005 he met his friend G. Schröder, at that time the german chancelor, and while visiting the whole Frankfurt/Main area was a paralysed security area. One of the biggest highways in Germany was closed, areas in Frankfurt/Main where closed, companies in Frankfurt, Mainz and Wiesbaden had to stop production, because the workers where not able to go to work. Police forces from all over Germany too part to secure him. Police and GSG-9 had to work for more that 30.000 hours. Baden-Württemberg, Berlin, Brandenburg, Hamburg and Thüringen are demanding 868.000 Euros. Additional 510.000 Euros where needed for equipment and more than 300.000 Euros for federal police forces. So the whole cost was at least more than TWO million Euros! Not included the loss of productivity for several companies! And that for just ONE day! --Dorfmueller 16:46, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Highlighting hot issues I think it'd be very beneficial to create wikis for specific races (e.g., the upcoming 2006 elections). They should highlight the hot national issues, national candidates (links to their websites, arguments for/against), and link to states for further coverage. So California would have a 2006 election wiki, then break it down into congressional districts. How's that? Do we have that already? --Ferguson 17:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Which side(s) are they on? Is there anything on the Internet that shows where every politician is on every issue? Is there anything on the Internet that shows where every citizen is on every issue? Is there anything on the Internet that lets everyone vote for everything? --Jeolmeun 18:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC) If you're talking about on a scale from international to local -- not yet. :-) (Not that I know of!) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:19, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Political Reform Campaign Financing Too much money spent on campaigns means inferior candidates. This homogeneous group of millionaires eliminates the opportunity for the average person to conduct a viable campaign. We need to reform this system now. Wikia, appears to be a good start. Wikia forums for the newbie Is there a help page for those new to using forums in the Mediawiki format? I don't think I'm in Typepad anymore, Toto. Categories/Subcategories I know it's a risk due to how likely vandalism will occur but it would be great if we could setup Categories and Sub-Categories. Right now there are only 6 main issue Categories that have only a limited number of sub-categories. Personally I'd like to see the Environment as a main-issue Category instead of it being placed in Public Interest as Environmental Protection. :I think we need to organize pages based on issue categories (for folk who like philosophical postings) as well as by State and Congressional District (to function as a resource of information for specific campaigns.). Right now there's a whole different discussion going on via the e-mail list serve. Because of the magnitude of this task, I recommend that us posters try to focus on disucssions of structure, because until we reach agreement on that this site won't offer very much except a stream-of-consciousness postings. --Tom Brown 22:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Editing wars Someone mentioned "editing wars." This is a highly charged political arena. How do avoid a sort of permanent 'Seigenthaler'type atmosphere given the perenially partisan nature of this beast? --Artie 22:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC) I think at some point, someone's going to have to decide on what this beast we're working on is and what we expect out of it. I have my views, of course, but there's no sense of direction right now. Currently, it seems most people view this as just another message board to debate in their usual asanine manner. Myself, I see more potential here. I've discussed dynamic essays a lot. Right now the most function part seems to be just getting all the election information in order. --Ferguson 23:50, 6 July 2006 (UTC) Related project I've been working on a related MediaWiki-based project called Issuepedia for over a year now, and I'm wondering a couple of things... # How can the two projects best work together? (See Issuepedia's mission statement etc.) Issuepedia's content is also GNU FDL licensed, so of course any useful bits can simply be copied over... but perhaps folks from this wiki might have thoughts on the directions in which I've taken Issuepedia, such as discussing logical fallacies and other rhetorical deceptions # Are there any ideas on how to deal with radically differing points of view, when they arise? I've been trying to sketch out ideas which would allow "communities-of-thought" (for lack of a better term) to coagulate in an ad-lib kind of way, but most of what I've written so far is kind of muddy. Kinky Friedman for Governor of Texas Kinky Friedman has earned the right to be placed on the ballot for the state elections coming up November 6, 2006. Kinky is running as an independent candidate for Governor, the first since Sam Houston in 1859. I have been a volunteer campaign worker out of the Fort Worth, Texas office since October, 2005. Our team has held numerous petition signing events and is now soliciting contributions to support the campaign. Kinky Friedman will not talk to lobbyists or take any PAC money. This is the cornerstone of the campaign. Kinky is a little rough around the edges, but he is a kind and honest man. Ethics are foremost in Mr. Friedman's practiced values. The Texas Ethics Commission website shows the "money trail" of all candidates and elected officials. By following the money, you can see how your elected officials will most likely vote. When these facts are used in committee hearings to pass, table or reject legislation, it is more likely that testifying citizens can hold sway over the monied lobbyists representing the varied special interests. A small amount of time can be invested by citizens to push the lobbyists out of the capitol. The Texas Legislature has an excellent online presence that can be used for two-way communication between members of the House and Senate, and their constituents at home. The lobbyists could be put aside if citizens would simply spend as much time making the news as they do watching the news. The campaign is fast-paced, and an excellent place for young people to get involved in politics. Us Baby Boomers had our causes when we were young, and worked hard to to see the results we desired. It's the "Me" generation's turn to become the "We" generation. Get involved. At this writing, there are 122 days until the election. Truth and ethics have an opportunity to return to our political system. Please participate where you have the passion to make a difference. Real I.D. act of 2005 The Real I.D. act of 2005 was passed with a military spending bill and signed into law by president bush in 2005. Since the mainstream media seem to have ignored this topic I hope a place can be found on this site and in the American dialouge to have a serious discussion about this bill. It has the potential to be one of the worst blows to our civil rights in american history (unless you trust the federal government and D.H.S. to manage your provicy concerns properly). I think if enough people start discussing the bill and it's ramifacations we can stop this kind of big brother mentality before it gets to much futher. (see Germany 1930's). For more info, see the wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act thankyou for your time and thankyou for this site. It is definitely something this country needs- Dialouge! IMPORTANT: WEBSITE VALUES The point of this website is to "ramp up the intelligence of politics." If you look at popular blogs like DailyKOS, or Little Green Footballs, you will find that they are far from intelligent. They value idiotic partisanry. Ideological disagreements are stamped out on each website, and both sides believe the other to be insane, dangerous, and treasonous. This is not intelligent politics. It is moronic, and it is something that this website should fight against devolving into. The commentary on this website should not be gut based, emotional, and angry, but instead rational, intelligent, and kind. Just as Wikipedia put value into a neutral point of view for their articles, we must put value into keeping this site clean of partisan furor designed to keep us divided. We must talk about the issues; not scream. So far I see evidence that this is already happening. But I suggest that we set it in stone as a guiding principle to help us police ourselves. It is difficult to remain calm in the face of disagreement, but if we cannot ask questions, talk, and learn from each other, this website will go down like any other on the Internet, and will be no better than any mainstream cable network. Slacksimus 04:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC) DNC 50 state strategy I was a part of this, hmmm... a lot to say about the company, Grassroots Inc hired to do this and the message itself. People canvasses want to know: Why give more money to the DNC? Are they going to impeach Bush? Well, the answer, probably not. Again, what is the DNC doing? Well, not much. Talking, talking and more talking. I'm over it.